The Auschwitz museum has issued a serious warning about the use of artificial intelligence to generate fabricated images and biographical details of Holocaust victims, calling the trend a dangerous distortion of historical truth.
Officials at the memorial site for the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which has long relied on social media to share real photos and stories of those murdered by the Nazis, say they’ve recently come across Facebook pages publishing altered or entirely fictional profiles.
According to deputy spokesman Pawel Sawicki, these online posts often mimic legitimate tributes but include photos clearly created using AI. “People have started to notice that there are pages, including one called ’90’s History,’ where there are short bios of the victims as well as photos that were clearly made by artificial intelligence,” he said.
Sawicki expressed deep concern about the implications of these falsified portrayals. “Producing artificial images of real people, or what is even more troubling, producing false identities of victims, is certainly troubling and also very harmful for the memory of those who died at Auschwitz,” he told AFP.
He emphasized that inserting made-up surnames and fabricated details into Holocaust records is a form of historical manipulation. “Producing artificial information, last names, is falsifying history,” Sawicki said.
The museum fears that the spread of such disinformation could fuel dangerous conspiracy theories and even embolden Holocaust denial. “There is, of course, a danger that if we have these fake people, then perhaps someone could claim that the whole thing is made up,” he added.
To address the issue, the museum has contacted Meta, Facebook’s parent company, in hopes the platform will take action to curb the spread of this harmful content.
{Matzav.com}